Prostatitis - follow up

After my last post on prostatitis, I continued to finish out my course of antibiotics because my urologist was really insistent that I do.  I felt about 95% certain that the issue was not bacterial, but I was concerned that if it was, and if I stopped prematurely, I would be breeding some sort of antibiotic resistant super-bacteria.

So last Wednesday, after about 75 days of straight antibiotics, I finally finished the full course.  The problem: I was still having intermittent pain.  The pain now is infinitely more bearable than when it was at its worst.  In fact, if I had to live with my current pain level, I think I could do it with very little loss of quality of life.  But I was concerned that if, on the offhand chance, it was bacterial, and the few surviving bacteria went on to re-populate my prostate, I would have to start the whole trial over again with stronger antibiotics.

Alas, the urologist said that he thinks my pain now is just "residual inflammation" that will, hopefully, fade away with time.  But if it doesn't, and the pain comes back to the point where it is unbearable to sit, like before, then we agreed that we would finally test the actual fluid from the prostate (not just the urine) to get a definitive answer as to whether the issue is bacterial.  This what I wanted to do from the beginning but, for whatever reason, the doctor was very resistant to this.  (That's a whole other post).

So in the end, I feel good that there's a chance this pain will slowly subside (at least until the next episode), and that there's a plan in place if it doesn't.  I'm a planner,  More than anything, I just like knowing there's a plan.